Cable TV was just a baby when Al Goldstein’s Midnight Blue hit our screens and treated New York City to a refreshing kind of sex ed. It rocked from 1974-2003 – thanks to an intrepid crew of talented rascals. In 1986 I visited them in the studio. I remember them fondly.

In a matter of minutes, a set is constructed. Arthur, a slight paunch showing over his jeans, sits atop a ladder. He wears his own yellow construction helmet. Arthur’s wife Magic, a caramel-colored Latin beauty, stands next to him. She is completely naked. While Arthur pretends to do some work on the wall, Magic plays with his tools. He hammers in a nail. She teases her nipples with his screw driver. He measures a space. She sucks on his hammer. Occasionally, she looks around, a bit unsure of what she is supposed to do next. They’re new at this.

Arthur and Magic live in Connecticut. He has his own construction company and she keeps house. But today they are stars, television stars. The camera that makes it all possible is the insatiable lens of Midnight Blue. After ten years on the air, the softcore cable show has become a New York institution.

Midnight Blue is the program where the interviewer occasionally gets peed on; where an unorthodox sex therapist gives instructions in dildo-sitting; where a bootleg Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and Porky Pig romp in cartoon orgies; where the camera leads the viewer on a tour of Manhattan’s sex people and sex places. It is owned by Screw/Gadget publisher Al Goldstein. Though Midnite Blue is a separate entity, the studio is in the same building on 14th Street as Mr. Goldstein’s other enterprises. This neighborhood is the heart of a bargain shop bazaar. Plastic flowers, ladies’ undies, toys, shoes, slippers and wigs are sold in bins outside the shops that surround the Midnight Blue studio. It is one of Manhattan’s most colorful locales, an appropriate place for Manhattan Cable’s most colorful show, which is amazingly well-produced at bargain basement prices.

The men behind Midnight Blue are all in the studio when I arrive. Arthur and Magic have packed up their belongings and headed for home. They hope that their performance will launch Magic’s X-rated movie career, or at least bring them in contact with a few playful swingers. Steve Kraus, the show’s most familiar interviewer, is proposing a Chinese lunch. Producer Albert Jacomma passes Kraus a container of organic peanut butter and a loaf of bread. Kraus looks disappointed. Steve Gruberg, the marketing director, shows definite interest in the peanut butter and hunts up a jar of low-calorie jelly.

During this impromptu snack, Lenny Eisenberg, Jacomma’s assistant, is at the editing board. Across three monitors, we see Magic and Arthur from three different views: a long shot of Arthur on the ladder and Magic with her arm over his thigh; a close-up of Magic masturbating with the hammer; a shot of Magic’s fingers as she unbuttons Arthur’s work shirt. In some offices, these views on the monitor might cause pandemonium, but here at Midnight Blue, it’s all in a day’s work.

Steve Kraus remembers exactly how he got involved with the show: “I was on my way up to the SCREW office to drop off an article and met Alex Bennett on my way into the building. This was about 1978. Alex was then producer of Midnight Blue. He told me he needed a movie reviewer for the show so I volunteered.

“I have a title which I generated for myself, which is Field Producer. It is completely meaningless or can mean anything that you want. I interview. I line-up different segments and I take part”

For Steve Kraus “taking part” covers a lot of territory, including the aforementioned pee scene.

“ls there anything you would not do on the air?” I ask Kraus, who is sniffing the perfume behind my ear. He considers the question and replies in his thick Polish accent, “Well, I don’t think that I would go along with being shat upon.

“One of my most memorable interviews was with one of the biggest stars of the X-rated screen, Georgina Spelvin. It got me fired. You see, they are always after me to get the clothes off these beautiful women who appear on the show, and I always feel it’s unfair for me to get these women naked, if I’m not. It’s not right … I’m serious about that. Well, at the end of the show Georgina and I were both naked. Mr. Goldstein fired me. He thought that it was undignified.”

Kraus tells me his family fled Poland during World War II, their fortune still intact. His Midnight Blue exploits are particularly interesting when contrasted with the other parts of his life. “I’m an investor. I invest my mother’s money in the stock market.” Steve Kraus’ family were staunch anti-Communists. His father worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the CIA. Kraus, himself, also conducts tours for the U.S. State Department.

The advertisers on Midnight Blue, for the most part, are all escort services. The show operates at a loss now but it was not always so. The man responsible for initiating Midnight Blue’s advertising concept is Steve Gruberg. Gruberg also joined the show in the days of Alex Bennett. He and Bennett were already good friends. Says Gruberg, “I’ve been involved in sales on and off, forever. When Alex got involved with the show, I asked him what the advertising plan was. He said, ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘Are you kidding? You should sell that show out.’ Alex invited me to do just that, and I did.”

Alex Bennett definitely got the ball rolling on Midnight Blue. He joined the show a few weeks after its inception and convinced then producer Bruce David to take the camera out of the studio and on location, which has been its format ever since. Bennett left the show after five years. He is now the most popular morning radio personality in San Francisco.

The man who has been Midnight Blue ever since is Albert Jacomma. Albert is one of my favorite people-talented, creative, hard-working and handsome. He too remembers exactly how he got involved with the show. He was in the building doing some construction work and happened to be on the same floor as the studio. “There was a problem with a piece of equipment and I told them how to fix it. Mr. Goldstein hired me on the spot.”

“Did you study video?” I ask Jacomma.

“I read a book once,” he tells me. “I never finished the book because it gave me a headache, but it was enough to get me a job here.”

“Do you get turned on watching all of this sex, day in and day out?”

“No,” he tells me. “I’m always thinking ahead to what I am going to do with the material. How will I edit it?”

“How many hours of work does the show involve?”

“Well, it should involve about 200 hours of work, but since Mr. Goldstein is only willing to pay for about 20, that’s what he gets,” he says half seriously. “It’s a low-budget enterprise. But,” he continues, “Midnight Blue exists only because Al Goldstein wants it to exist. We do not operate at a profit.”

“How does your wife feel about your job? Does she ever get jealous?”

“Well, you know love is blind. But my wife always knows where I am. Some guys tell their wives they’re out bowling and leave the wife to wonder. I tell my wife, I’m going out to look up Annie Sprinkle’s crack… She knows what I’m doing.”

“Albert, one day when I visited the studio, you were wearing a sarong With nothing underneath. How do you explain that?”

“Well, it would be kind of constricting to wear something under a sarong. But I enjoy being naked. I’m usually naked at home. At Midnght Blue, it’s one of the perks. If I were working at CBS, I couldn’t do it … but I’d be making more money.”

Albert Jacomma could easily be working at CBS. In fact, when I showed a researcher from 60 Minutes the preliminary or “rought cut” of a video that Albert and I had worked on together, she said it was the best rough cut she’d ever seen.

“Albert, whatever happened to the plan that the Playboy Channel would show Midnite Blue?”

“The answer came back that they thought the show was ‘too New York.’ I guess what that really means is they decided we weren’t ‘clean’ enough for them. Have you ever watched the Playboy Channel?”

“Just a couple of shows!’

“Well, then you know that the interviewers on the Playboy Channel want to be on Entertainment Tonight. They’re scrubbed, squeaky clean. I guess we aren’t clean enough for Playboy.”

What keeps Jacomma, Kraus and Gruberg together is largely the respect and camaraderie they’ve developed for each other over the years -in addition to a healthy interest in lust and perversity.

The newest member of the team is Lenny Eisenberg, Albert Jacomma’s assistant. Since Jacomma’s duties run the gamut from directing to camera work, to editing, and more, Lenny does a little of everything. He is a musician at heart and wants to get back to his music. “After two years, I’m feeling a bit jaded toward all this sexual material,” he tells me. “But working here has given me a real education in video, better than I could have learned at any school. It will help me produce music videos for my band.”

Lenny is blond, blue-eyed and 27. “How do your girl friends react to what you do?” I ask. “Well, there have been one or two who were very suspicious of me when they saw the show. They thought that sex was all that I’m interested in, and that just isn’t true. In fact, it’s since doing this show that I’ve gotten involved in my first traditional, monogamous relationship.”

Just then Al Goldstein enters the studio. His appearance is greeted with appropriate fanfare. From the laid back atmosphere of moments before, we switch into high gear. Goldstein is energy on wheels and clearly the center of attention. He sits in a chair on camera and begins his “Fuck you’s,” a regular part of the programming. This week the targets of his attacks include the “Herb” hamburger commercial, as well as people who sit in first class, and his arch enemy, the Pillsbury Doughboy (whom he battled in the courts and won). Since it’s just before Christmas, he lashes out at all those who grovel and grasp for his pockets. Then he plugs a London show on the advice-he says candidly-of his comptroller, Phillip Eisenberg, who told him if he mentions the show on the program, he can write off his trip to London.

He’s off and the crew sets up for Ms. Justice “44FFF” Howard who is at that moment buying a pair of false eyelashes on 14th Street. The cameras roll again as Justice performs with her bunny Rodney cuddled between her milky white breasts.

After Justice’s performance, I finish off the roll in my camera by shooting people around the office. I meet Paola, Lenny Eisenberg’s beautiful girl friend. She’s waiting for him to finish work. “Hi, my name is Paola and I come from Rome,” she says in a soft deep, Italian accent. It’s easy to understand why Lenny is monogamous. Paola tells me that in Italy there are five or six stations that show sex-often hardcore-late at night on television. “It’s all free, no one has to pay. It’s not considered such a big deal. In Italy, there is not the paranoia about sex that there seems to be in the United States.”

Before ending my research on Midnight Blue, I telephone Alex Bennett in San Francisco. I get him on his birthday. Our conversation is interrupted several times by well-wishers. Alex tells me about the early days of Midnite Blue, about convincing Al Goldstein and his then partner Jim Buckley to spring for 3/4″ video equipment. “We were probably the first to use 3/4″ inch equipment and certainly the first to use it for sex. A lot of our concepts, like the video-centerfolds (putting pictures to music) are the inspiration for the current music videos.”

It was Bennett who changed the name of the show to Midnght Blue. “Originally it was called SCREW Magazine of the Air. But I always felt that the show should have a separate identity from SCREW I’ve always had the thinking of a broadcaster, not a publisher. The difference is that a magazine is something the consumer must make a conscious effort to purchase. He has more of a chance to pick and choose. In broadcasting, the program is often in front of the viewer before he realizes it. I always wanted Midnight Blue to be a show that you didn’t have to be embarrassed to watch.”

The show was never tame. In fact in its early days, it caused quite a reaction and was even kicked off the air. “This was largely through the efforts of Headley Donovan, who was the chairman of Time-Life, the parent company of Manhattan Cable and HBO,” continues Bennett. “I spoke in front of a Congressional committee in defense of the show,” he says proudly.

“I think the show these days reflects more of Al Goldstein’s ideals and tastes,” says Bennett. Midnight Blue also reflects a reduced budget. Alex worked with a crew of eight people. Albert Jacomma works with three when he’s lucky.

Jacomma feels that the show is at present an anachronism. “Tits and ass are not the big deal they used to be.”Jacomma wants the show to say more. A few days before, they taped a performance piece called The Prometheus Project. It stars Annie Sprinkle and deals with the themes of nuclear war and pornography. “I’d like to explore more of the commercialization of sex,” says Jacomma, “get after Madison Avenue.”

“I’d like to turn Midnight Blue into something the Disney channel can use,” says Al Goldstein, “so Jacomma can play Mickey Mouse on weekends!’

What will be the future of Midnight Blue? Tune in Mondays and Fridays at midnight and see. One thing’s for sure: it will always be sexy.

This article was originally published in 1986 in ADAM Magazine.